The Humboldt Board of Supervisors is set to consider a resolution drafted by the Human Rights Commission aimed at ensuring the safety and peace of mind of those that feel threatened by federal policy regarding immigration status.

This potential action comes after the Board didn’t have the guts to create such a “civil rights and diversity” resolution of their own back in March.

If you take the time to go through the copy of the recommendations linked above, one thing about it may strike you: the resolution essentially says nothing, and in actuality accomplishes nothing. The Supervisors, and specifically Virginia Bass – who originally brought the concept forward – based the resolution on one passed recently in Sonoma County. The Sonoma County version, unlike Humboldt’s vision, notably guarantees essential County services to all residents regardless of legal status.

Bass was decidedly non-committal on that aspect.

According to LoCO: “For Bass, the specific words [of the resolution] don’t matter as much as the underlying principle.” (That is a worryingly vapid stance for a Supervisor to take on such a controversial issue, don’t you think?)

Judging from Virginia’s apparently desperate need to get attention, calling for the protection of all County residents while pushing the responsibility off on someone else to craft a resolution that effectively does nothing to protect anyone, it’s clear that the specifics of protecting really don’t mean a damn thing to her.

She just wanted to cast herself as sympathetic to people who may be affected by ICE raids or persecution by giving the issue lip service.

Case in point: LoCO asked Bass whether she thought the County should “provide “essential services to all County residents regardless of immigration status.””

Her response? That it depends on what constitute “essential services.” She went on: “Police and fire is one thing; county services might be a different discussion.”

Nice, Virginia. What about DHHS services – specifically access to health services? And do they deserve housing assistance?

Here, we see Virginia Bass in her natural habitat: pandering to whatever cause or group she can in order to secure her future on the Board of Supervisors, but not actually wanting to commit to a strong or meaningful position that might alienate people on the other side of the issue.

There’s a word for this: spineless. (Like a jelly fish.)

Help…me…I can’t stand…up for anything

But wait! The tangled web of uselessness that is the proposed diversity resolution goes even deeper. If you didn’t read the resolution earlier, do it now by clicking right here, lazy.

The resolution has a lot of rosy language which espouses the diversity of the County and assure folks who might be worried that Humboldt has their back.

Unfortunately, if you read item #4 on the 3rd page of that attachment, you’ll see that it says this:

“Encourage and support local law enforcement agencies, including theSheriff’s office, to not use staff resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes, except as directed by State and Federal laws, and as stated in the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office declaration of March 14, 2017: “Enforcement of immigration laws is not the job of the Sheriff and my office does not and will not conduct proactive or reactive immigration enforcement duties in this community“;

Let’s key in on the crux of the problem with that, which is the phrase “except as directed by State and Federal laws,” – which simply means that the County of Humboldt won’t bust you for being illegal until, you know, someone tells them to do it. As soon as the Donald comes calling, though, any illegals are screwed.

Thanks?

Ultimately, what we have in this resolution is a shameless attempt by Bass to pander to the left, while still trying to ensure she won’t lose support from the right. What we do not have is any form of protection for illegals or our communities, which Virginia claims to hold dear.

What we do have is yet another waste of our County’s time and money. What we do not have is County leadership willing to put themselves on the line for their beliefs or the good of our community.

At least other sanctuary cities and counties stick to their guns in standing up for what they think is right. But thanks for pretending, Virginia.

The illegal alien problem is an outgrowth of the 60’s. People then in large numbers began ignoring any law they didn’t like, and those who tried to enforce them were belittled and demeaned as, wait for it ……Nazis
This is what you get when you treat laws as though they’re nothing more than suggestions and when you treat the Constitution as a ‘ living, breathing’ document that can be ignored or overridden based on some judges whim rather than the supreme law of the land, you breed contempt for all laws.
Look at the Obama administration’s ignoring the laws they didn’t like. Look at how then President Obama rewrote the Obamacare law to push off the worst effects of it until he was out of office. Look at Eric Holder being held in contempt of congress for refusing to honor Congressional subpoenas, or how he decided not to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation.

If you ignore a law long enough, such as our immigration laws, it becomes almost impossible to enforce. Why should Congress pass laws if the Executive Branch, tasked with enforcing laws, is just going to refuse to do so? Not enforcing law makes it no law at all.

Off topic but what’s up with all the homeless in Eureka? The scene got a little better after they passed the panhandling ordinance but it seems like we are back to square one. There’s more homeless and they have the signs back out.

How can lefties just sit by and let Virginia claim all this crap about being illegal-groovy and not rake her over the coals? I lean pretty heavy towards following the law when it come to illegals but this is bad from the county.
p.s. way to avoid saying anything about your position on illegals THC lol

I not only don’t want a Sanctuary County I don’t want our board of Supervisors to support one in spirit. I only hope there will be a conservative to moderate running against her next year instead of just the left wing party girl Arroyo.

“p.s. way to avoid saying anything about your position on illegals THC lol”

Exactly Tommy, except he did use the humanity-draining term “illegals” as you did to which pretty much says it all.

Although the title is doted with froth-inducing words of immigration politics such as ICE, sanctuary to let the readers know what this post is about, his point is really a) Government shouldn’t be wasting time on this resolution and b) Supervisor Bass is pandering.

But then he, as you point out, in effect is pandering himself. He doesn’t come out on the issue. In fact it reads as if he would/could push for more protection for “illegals” (your guys’ offensive term).

Enforcement of immigration laws is the job of federal agencies pure and simple. Rusty’s rant is simply untrue. Here is one grab from a Google image search. (I had to cherry-pick the one that did not gratuitously use the word “aliens” (the ones that did of course were sites such as lou dobbs and cato))

Deportation of undocumented immigrants had steadily increased under President Obama. The enforcement of immigration laws continued to go in the right direction (yes liberals too believe in the rule of law, it’s part-and-parcel with governing and we need a fair and workable immigration system). If you pay attention to federal immigration laws, you will notice that it is the Republicans who are split on this. This is because business owners depend on immigrants, especially those afraid of enforcement, to reduce labor costs.

What the Supervisors (and the Sheriff before them) are reacting to is a nationalist political movement that elected the current administration. There are human beings in our county that are being adversely affected by the fear and hatred. Visit the LoCO post on this and you will find your favorite antagonist Renee Saucedo reporting that there is “absolute terror” in Humboldt’s Latin community. Is that what you want?

This resolution is important because it helps to let our community know how Humboldt County’s government functions. THC Humboldt County is not an independent nation, so we do have to follow “State and Federal laws”. My God! At the same time this is how our Sheriff department has explained how it will conduct it’s job. “Enforcement of immigration laws is not the job of the Sheriff and my office does not and will not conduct proactive or reactive immigration enforcement duties in this community“.

Again, the County of Humboldt is not an independent nation, but it’s employees, including LE has specific jobs it is paid to do and specific laws they are paid to enforce. That goes on without change.

And this…”What about DHHS services – specifically access to health services?” As you I am a DHHS employee, I do not speak for the DHHS management, but I can tell you generally about where the DHHS stands in the hierarchy of governments. Again we are at the bottom, we are not an independent agency and our funding and our programs stem from the federal programs Medicaid and S.N.A.P.

You could imagine then that Supervisor Bass really does not have too much to say about how this functions other than to maintain due process for all the clients of DHHS. The DHHS is not an enforcement agency and if you haven’t heard any news about how Medicaid and S.N.A.P has changed under the Trump Administration, it is probably because nothing has changed.

One would imagine that the DHHS’s mission would be to serve all of their clients with the respect and dignity they deserve – regardless of citizenship status. Does any one disagree? Also, as you can find online, citizenship status does indeed affect eligibility to Federal programs and sometimes, California can adjust these eligibility standards as they did here…

“Under the law, the state in May 2016 will begin extending Medi-Cal coverage to about 170,000 undocumented immigrant children under age 19. The expansion is projected to cost $40 million in the next fiscal year and about $132 million annually following implementation.”

So, again this isn’t really about Supervisor Bass pandering, she and the other Supervisors are doing what she needs to do to balance National politics that are not felt by her constituents with the day-to-day running of the governmental agency she leads as a representative of her constituents.

What this clearly is about is your inability to write what you want to say. I don’t know what it is you want to say, but it is very clear that either you or your readers feel put-out by something. This is clear by your passion for this subject and the similar passion for the subject of HAF’s support for communities around Humboldt that do not share all the protections that you or I might given the language we speak, the complexion of our skin, our gender, our nation of origin or heritage etc.

Most of our community wishes to make a clear statement that we are not going to intentionally make other community members fearful for political gain. I hope the Supervisors can make this statement loud and clear, and I hope that if you disagree, I hope you and your readers find the words to clearly state your opposition.

Umm…what is the more compassionate/informed/intelligent/accurate/more palatable term for illegals, then? For crying out loud keep it short please.

And yeah there’s a pecking order. Agencies have to follow the rules. You’ll notice that plenty of other counties, cities, etc. have taken strong stances, a la sonoma. Bass couldn’t even commit to that, so we’re left with an empty resolution. I gotta back THC up on this one.

As for saucedo, the latest shit she stirred up at CR is proof-positive that she’s encouraging rabid reactions to imagined persecution and encouraging humboldt to do the same. That doesn’t mean there isn’t fear or whatever, but using saucedo as a bullhorn diminishes those causes. my 2 cents

Typical liberal a response, dismiss as untrue, post graphics, lull the reader to sleep with the party line.
I do the like graphics because you spin it to look as, Obama is tough on illegal immigrants, when in fact illegal immigration was at and all time high and ICE couldn’t keep up because Obama promised HRC a couple of million votes. So thanks for makeing my point.
Here’s what piss’s people off, Illegal Aliens coming here illegally sucking up tax payer funded programs intended for out of work, disabled and otherwise down on there luck United States Citizens.
We have a fair and working immigration policy, where the system gets bogged down is all the illegal aliens, why doesn’t anyone get that?
The best supervisor I ever had was a legal immigrant. Came to the U.S. legally, got a job,
took her citizenship test and became a United States Citizen. That was her intent when she immigrated here 45 years ago, she applied for a visa and waited her turn. She is now happily retired with her wife on social security that she paid into.
And overwhelming majority of Illegal Aliens crossing into the United States Illegally come here with the intent distribute illegal drugs, or suck up as much entitlements as the bleeding hearts in Sacramento can squeeze out of the already empty state coffers and terrorize the legal immigrant community with the Cartels on going criminal activities.
DHHS is at the bottom of the government hierarchy ??? Nice bait and switch, DHHS is the biggest hog at the county trough.
No community members need be fearful if they are indeed members of our community. Membership has requirements, come here legally, become a useful contributing member of our community. Not the immigrant community, not the gay community, not the white, black, brown, yellow community, our community.
I agree with the Sheriff however, if Federal officers conducting lawful enforcement activities request assistance I expect local and state law enforcement to respond derisively.
I support a clear statement that we are not going to intentionally make other community members fearful for political gain or any other reason. Do I think it will do any good? Sadly no.

How should a liberal address that which clearly isn’t true? I might not be able to sway you Rusty, but I also think it is incumbent on liberals to make sure clearly false propaganda doesn’t go unchallenged. One thing to do is to do our best not to simply dismiss as untrue. We need to back up arguments with measures of reality. So at least there, Rusty, you and I agree.

Onward to your points.

“you spin it to look as, Obama is tough on illegal immigrants, when in fact illegal immigration was at an all time high and ICE couldn’t keep up because Obama promised HRC a couple of million votes. So thanks for making my point”

For those not following this, check out the chart above. Despite the conservative talking point, Obama was very tough on enforcing immigration laws, much more so than the Bush administration. Rusty says this is because immigration was at an all time high. Turns out this is untrue too.

But of course this is true

“Here’s what piss’s people off, Illegal Aliens coming here illegally sucking up taxpayer funded programs intended for out of work, disabled and otherwise down on their luck United States Citizens.”

You, and many others are pissed off. You have a story, you have a villain, and you thus have the reasons for your woes.

This story is at the heart of the populism of the Republican Party. The goals of the party is to do what their business funders want. They wish to reduce the influence of the public sector so the private sector can do what they want (ie the “free market”). But they can’t get there on that argument alone. Their voters finally can see through that given what happens to the economy under Republican rule. Therefore conservative populists create stories about liberals, Mexicans, Muslims that have a grain of truth to them then blow them out of proportion to make it seem that if we just spend another trillion dropping mothers of all bombs or another 20 billion on a wall, then, Rusty, your life will be better off.

Here is a question for you Rusty. Do you think the Republicans will be passing comprehensive immigration reform anytime soon? We’ll see. It isn’t the Democrats or liberals (or some minority of Republicans such as pre-2016 Senator Rubio) that are against a sane (and fair) immigration policy, it’s the business owners who need the Mexican labor to reduce costs. It’s an internal Republican struggle and Trump managed to use anti-other populism to expand Reagan’s Southern Strategy to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

President Trump has taken on public education, the EPA and climate change, the pipeline, the ACA, taxes, but he and Republicans have yet to make an attempt to change immigration policy. We’ll see how this all turns out and I will concede that there is evidence that rhetoric alone seems to curb the number of immigrants attempting to cross the Southern border.

But do you think Republicans, with the Democrats only a memory in any of the 3 branches of government, will be motivated to take on immigration policy? We are going to find out who really is in charge in the Republican Party the xenophobes or the business leaders.

One last thing Rusty. Why is it, if we are really concerned about illegal immigration, we don’t focus on the business owners? Why don’t we make a point of calling them out as illegal? Why don’t we create or enforce laws by putting the business owners and managers who knowingly hire illegals in jail? That would also solve the problem without a big beautiful wall and without all the hateful rhetoric.

Maybe the reason we don’t is one side of our bipartisan political system depends on the hateful rhetoric to motivate their base. (imho)

Again with the graphics, but this time it’s the old bait switch again….your graphics show legal immigration stats. I said:
“Typical liberal response, dismiss as untrue, post graphics, lull the reader to sleep with the party line.
I do the like graphics because you spin it to look as, Obama is tough on illegal immigrants, when in fact illegal immigration was at and all time high and ICE couldn’t keep up because Obama promised HRC a couple of million votes. So thanks for makeing my point. ”
In case you missed it, the key word is illegal.
Grafts are all cool and groovy but one has to look at the context of the end user such as the first graft. You use it to state Obama was tougher on illegal immigration than any other President when what the graph actually shows is illegal immigration is in a free for all and these are just the ones that got caught. Everyone knows for every one you see there’s 10 more in the bushs and Obamas acting tough while winking and waving them in.
As to the second graft your context again, is that I said legal immigration when in fact I said “illegal immigration”
Onward:
Yes why don’t we focus on business onwers, managers for illegally hiring illegal aliens?
Well we haven’t for the last few decades but there’s a guy in the white house now that changing that. And yes I do think legal immigration will improve reform or not, getting rid of the illegals will do just that.
Every President since Regan has kicked the can down the road regarding Iran, North Korea, Iraq, China, Russia, immigration,Trumps actually doing something. Big job, big big, huge job.
As to the rest of your propaganda, rhetoric, musings, opinions, you pretty much just resorted to name calling.

Rusty, graphics are needed because we need context to what is otherwise the mother of all emotional arguments. “Those people are taking my jobs.”

And you are right, I am wrong. In my attempt to do the work of keeping the topic based in reality, I used the wrong chart. Thank you for taking the time to pay attention and my fault for missing that obvious difference.

So, I could not find the original chart I was going to use b/c it included immigration (estimated) totals to a couple of other countries. In fact, in an early am search, I couldn’t find a graph that shows estimated rates of immigration from Mexico to the US that could give better context than this “Everyone knows for every one you see there’s 10 more in the bushes” (Rusty, I’m not quoting exactly b/c I can’t stand the spell-check redline while typing)

So if you combine this with the first graph above, you can deduce that immigration was not over-flowing to the point that immigration enforcement could not keep up. They were keeping up and the result, ACTUAL POPULATION (ie the result of the rate of immigration and thus arguably a more important metric) of Mexican nationals had been declining.

Lookit, this discussion is depressing to me but I’m glad you are willing to have it. I do listen to right wing radio and pay attention to right wing sites. The word on the conservative street is liberals are pro-immigration b/c it means more votes. That isn’t true (at least not for this liberal). There is a difference in how you and I see people who are different from us. To you there are 10 behind a bush. To me that picture is offensive. To you these people are best defined as illegals, to me they are best defined as people.

You’ve got something you what to keep from them, I’ve got something I’d like to share responsibly and fairly to guests in our country remembering that anyone born in our country, thanks to our Constitution, has the same exact rights as you or I do.

President Trump and Republicans will absolutely NOT EVER PUT AN ILLEGAL EMPLOYER IN JAIL. At least not as a show of force to quell other employers from doing the same. And that is the entire point. This is another example of the Republican businessman’s war on the worker. It is so ironic that this battle is taking place in one party.

Wasn’t an immigration crack-down what got Trump elected? You know the Republican rhetoric, why haven’t they done anything about it yet? Why health care and tax cuts for the wealthy first? The reason is, the Republican businessmen such as the construction industry, large agricultural industries and food processing industries depend on immigrant labor to reduce costs. The best kind of immigrant labor for the unscrupulous businessman is illegal immigration because then that employer has extra leverage over his obviously temporary employee.

Tracking and enforcement of labor practices would be exceedingly simple in our technological age, but this is something Congress won’t pass because of shouts about building the wall first (that’s the rhetoric from the right anyway).

The politics stink, yet the Republicans and conservative electoral victories depend on our human tendency to blame others for their electoral victories. It’s why Trump’s greatest supporting demographic are whites without a college degree. Exactly those most susceptible to the fear that the other is taking their job.

It’s a game they are playing, they are very good at it, it’s class warfare, and they (you?) are winning.

One of the reasons President Trump was able to get himself elected was exactly the attitude you show towards illegal aliens. You naively see hapless immigrant workers just wanting to seek a better life, well we have a system for that it call legal immigration, apply for a visa and wait your turn. I see drug mules and job stealers robing legal immigrants of there rights, human trafficking by the Cartels. Its not a game, it’s life and death, eat or starve.
Rome wasn’t built in a 100 days, never say never. Don’t you just love idioms?
I could go on but it’s Monday and as you said “this is depressing.”

“He who is not a socialist at twenty compels one to doubt the generosity of his heart; but he who, after thirty, persists, compels one to doubt the soundness of his mind.” -Anselme Polycarpe Batbie
(Translated from French, and attributed to Burke by Batbie)
May day indeed.

“One of the reasons President Trump was able to get himself elected was exactly the attitude you show towards illegal aliens.” Yup. And that is what I’m fighting against. Why? Because this … is un-American, almost by definition.

“When Mexico sends it people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” – El Presidente.

That’s pretty bleak, and that also has zero to do with reality. (Ok, zero is an exaggeration. Less than one percent.)

The overwhelming millions of undocumented immigrants who are here are here largely out of economic desperation. They are here to find a way to work, work, btw, that you and I wouldn’t do without $5 or more in hourly wages added on.

And that is the point. Yes, there will be news stories about an immigrant murderer and locally about Mexican national cartels in the local drug trade. But what Trump did was scape goat and what you are doing is scape goating. You are missing the reality, and by missing the reality, you are missing a fair and rational solution to the problem Trump voiced during the campaign.

But here, again is the ugly political truth that the next 2 or 4 years will be able to clarify. Do Republicans really see undocumented immigrants as an unalloyed bad thing? I don’t think so. I think the most powerful Republicans are down and it’s because it helps their bottom line.

We’ll see. In the mean time I hope we can at least agree that while President Trump won a primary and election on a big and beautiful $20 billion wall that Mexico will pay for and a deportation policy that will include deporting American children of undocumented immigrants.

But immigration policy, it’s political context and potential solutions are much more complicated given that we are Americans and we do see ourselves as a shining light on a hill for the rest of the world, right? That’s the kind of country I wish to live in, isn’t that true for you too?

Please check out the timely post below from Kevin Drum yesterday recounting an article by a local weekly newspaper writer in SoCal recounting the Orange Wars of Orange County from the pre Cold War era. It recounts the “job stealers” of 1936 and how a white establishment broke the immigrant strike and resistance.

Lookit Rusty, it’s not Mexicans you have to worry about as “job steelers”, it’s capital. Capital earns money from profit, profit is increased with decreased labor costs. That’s the battle that is going on since the Civil War era and capital has been on a 70 year winning streak. THE way it won with a flawed candidate like Trump was by Trump’s lies about “illegal aliens” and Muslims tapping into the dark politics of fear and resentment.

We are better than that, and once we realize that, we’ll all be better off.

Quick question lmob: Is there a reason “Illegals” or ” undocumentes” immigrants or whatever you want to say can’t come here through the prescribed processes? Just curious why some immigrants go through the process and others don’t.

The reason is our immigration laws are broken and do not deal with reality.

Your question seeks to place all responsibility on the undocumented immigrant. Put yourself in their shoes. You have done everything you can to make ends meet in your country (think of our own experiences here in Humboldt for clarity on this). Ends are not being met. You can take a risk to life and limb and travel far from your home and family to earn a first-world salary. What would you do knowing this is about survival and Mexico doesn’t have the social safety nets the U.S. does?

The real reason, then, that the undocumented immigrant decides to do this is she can. What you and I (and by extension, our representatives) have to do is to agree on an immigration policy but we can’t.

Now, we have to be honest here, sure the Democrats have responsibility and I’m not shirking all responsibility as a Democrat, but this issue is PREDOMINATELY a Republican/conservative one. The schism that disallows immigration reform that would allow more individuals to come within a legal framework is a Republican one.

On the one hand there are conservatives who are (I’m going to say this generously) concerned about their culture changing. I think Michael Savage says this most concisely – “language, borders, culture”. On the other hand there are market conservatives and business owners that understand that large numbers of immigrants help the bottom line of labor costs (and thus profits).

Add to that this little conundrum. In order to remain a populist party and to be able to maintain enough power to do things like cut taxes for the rich while decimating critical developed world priorities like health insurance for all and retirement without abject poverty, some Republican strategists must see that an unresolved immigration situation helps to rile up the base and win elections. That’s what I’m talking about when I say the “dark politics of fear and resentment”.

Below is a link to a critical moment in our most recent election that helps illustrate my point. Conservative Rick calls the Rush Limbaugh show. At this point Rick is desperate, not because he is afraid of a Trump presidency as I was, but is animation and argument with Rush is that he, like most of us, thought Trump was doomed to electoral failure. In this call he points out the lies that got Trump way ahead of the Republican primary pack against incredible resistance from the Republican old-guard, which, ironically included Tea-Party types like Ted Cruz supporters. The pay-off is that Rush admits to Rick that he didn’t take Trump seriously anyway and everybody was in on it.

So, with that as context back to your question. I understand that there is more to work here than simply judging an “illegal alien” for not getting in an eternal que. There is something else that is broken and that is our country’s immigration policy. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer to focus not on judging the immigrant I don’t know and instead focus on judging myself, and others who chose our nation’s representatives.

The other, more practical reason being that changing immigration policy is something we have control over, another person’s actions, not so much. (At least not without the exceedingly expensive proposal of law enforcement actions.)

Que the music:
Whoop, There it is. Whoop, there it is.
Haveing worked for two years picking all sorts of flowers and bulbs, Daffodils being the worst because the the weather in February is just lovely, you have no idea what I would do for minimum wage or less.
I’m not buying what you sellin comrade.
Let’s place the blame where it belongs, B.S. smoke and mirrors Democrats use to hoodwink
Everyone.

You’ll want to adjust for inflation. Make sure that you adjust for the pending inflation that has been artificially kept low during Obams terms by the fed. Obamas gdp would have been sub-zero if not for zero interest rates.

And then adjust for government spending, which is included in gdp and has been increasing for decades and skyrocketed during Obamas terms. Amazing, isn’t it, that a key economic indicator can be manipulated by government boondoggles.

And then adjust for social security, Medicare, government pensions and unemployment payments. The payments aren’t included in gdp, but the sales of goods and services purchased with those payments are included. And those goods and services have been increasing rapidly because of retiring senior citizens and because of increases in unemployment payments.
And then adjust for time bombs like the Community Reinvestment Act, and terrorism which were set in motion during Bubba’s regime, and later exploded the economy while Bush was President.

But that’s enough for this exercise. Anyone can play the adjustment game forever.

Reality is that Democrats spend massive amounts of money on catastrophically wasteful government giveaway programs, tax the crap out of productive people which deprives them of the ability to add value to the economy , and then regulates the hell out of what those people are still able to create, all of which holds the economy back even more.

The bottom line is that Obama has been the biggest economic disaster since Jimmy Carter. Bush had a tough row to hoe, but he also made mistakes that hurt the economy. Bubba was lucky. He was president during the dot com boom; the Cold War was over; and he had a Republican congress that forced him into some decent economic policies. But Ronald Reagan’s administration saved the country. The economy under Jimmy Carter was the worst it has been in the country except for the Great Depression. Reagan’s policies stopped the bleeding and started an extremely strong economic boom that lasted through the Clinton years. Trump’s policies are similar to Reagan’s policies. Of course, the Democrats will do everything they can to stop them and might succeed, since they support violence as we saw in the May Day party in Portland, and the free speach haters in Berkeley, but not in Fortuna, bravo, to get their way, but if Trump is able to implement what he has proposed, the economy will boom.
We do need strick enforcement on employer’s who hire illegal aliens and do not use the H-2A programs. This coupled with a Wall much like Mexico has on it’s own southern border will help that. And don’t tell me walls don’t work, just look at China, keeping the Huns at bay for years and years.
And one more thing if your going to use my quotes don’t miss spell them, it makes one of use look stupid or stupider.

So what you are saying is that it’s understandable that immigrants break the law because they perceive a need to do so and its a law they disagree with. Why wouldn’t that logic apply to any law I disagree with?

By the way Republicans and Democrats DID agree on immigration policy and law. That’s exactly how it became law. Congress voted and the President signed. That’s how the process works. What they can’t agree on is how to CHANGE the law. That’s an entirely different issue. Most of us don’t think it’s okay to break existing laws because we disagree with them. We obey the law and work to modify the points we dislike.

I do see the need to change existing laws and generally side with most of the Democrats positions on the issue but lets not kid ourselves about what is really going on.

First of all this…“lets not kid ourselves about what is really going on.”.
Yes pls.

“By the way Republicans and Democrats DID agree on immigration policy and law. That’s exactly how it became law. Congress voted and the President signed. That’s how the process works. What they can’t agree on is how to CHANGE the law.”

This isn’t quite right. Join NPR in a time-machine from 2010. Both the audio and the write up of this story emphasizes one of the ideas of amnesty would be the government would do a better job of controlling the border. This would include border security AND “stiff” fines on employers. That is in the law now.

If you listen to the interview, by the end, the Reagan disciple spins WRWT (What Reagan Would Think) to focusing only on border control forgetting entirely the critical point that if employers quit hiring undocumented immigrants, a major motivation for hardworking immigrants to come up here would dry up as quickly as the water does in the desert separating out two countries.

So what you are saying is that it’s understandable that immigrants break the law because they perceive a need to do so and its a law they disagree with. Why wouldn’t that logic apply to any law I disagree with?

Yes, it is absolutely understandable, isn’t it? And yes, you can use that logic too, but you have been given incentive not too, as a citizen.

We are all human and do what we need to do to survive. If you had no income to support your family. If you knew you could gain employment at 10 or 100 times the wage you could in your country you might do what it takes to feed your family too. Also, remember that undocumented immigrants are not breaking any laws of THEIR country. How concerned are you really about the laws of Mexico or Canada? Remember, an undocumented immigrant have few positive reasons to be concerned about the niceties of a foreign country’s laws, only negative ones (ie getting deported or going to jail). I hope you are taking all of that into account as you compare your ethics and behavior favorably to an immigrants.

So please, let’s not kid ourselves about what is going on. This is about economic desperation – enough to risk life and limb to make the epic journey to reach the United States.

(For context, please Google yesterday’s NYT story “A Path to America, Marked by More and More Bodies” – from 2000 to 2016 there have been 6,023 documented deaths of immigrants found in AZ, CA, NM and TX)

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While we are at it then, I also hope that we agree on the following…

•What got Trump past the post in the Republican primary (and fueled the general election) was is disregard for the final arbitrar of law in the U.S., the Constitution, saying he was going to deport all immigrant families – the parents and their citizen children. (see the Atlantic link from my May 3rd comment) The immigration debate isn’t really about law breaking, it’s about something “borders, language, culture”. Let’s not kid ourselves.

•Trump’s primary campaign was about making America Great again and the way we would do this was by fixing the immigration problem and finding a way to stop Muslims from entering our country. Those were the themes of his campaign, but the reality is, those are not the (un)governing priorities of his administration or the Republican congress, are they?
▫The priorities, of course, as we all should know, are lowering taxes even more for the wealthiest Americans while decimating Democratic efforts to insure those in the lower middle and lower economic classes. Please, let’s not kid ourselves.

•Republicans (and many Democrats) are not and will not pursue illegal employers, at least not with the stiff, simple, efficient punishments that would parallel the expensive, punitive, inefficient and ultimately unsuccessful efforts we are making to stem the flow of immigrants. Right? Let’s not kid ourselves.

•President Obama was enforcing existing immigration laws at record levels, and this was not due to a spike in illegal immigration. Let’s not kid ourselves.

•Candidate Clinton did not win the popular vote by 3 million votes based on 3 million votes by illegal immigrants. Let’s not kid ourselves.

•The Republican Party is now dominated by those whose political lineage goes through Confederate Democrats. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania tipped the electoral college for Trump and this was done by extending Southern politics of blaming those with whom the majority of voters do not affiliate. There are either spoken or unspoken different and punitive rules and laws for those others, that if enforced will make life better. That’s the rhetoric anyway, the truth is it’s all just a smoke screen as Republican leaders continue follow policies that allow the successful to live a life of luxury afforded to life’s winners, you know, people like their standard bearer, Donald Trump. Let’s not kid ourselves.

•This post was not about “protecting those at risk”, let’s not kid ourselves.

And one more thing. It’s easy to forget the rest of the world when focused on our own country’s political motivations and woes. Conservative politics winning by focusing blame on “the other” is not only a US thing. It’s tried and true and it seems the more extreme (yes, fueled in part by heinous and indefensible acts of terror), the better these days. France this month, Brexit last summer, and post-Rabin Israel all come to mind.